First Thomistic Circles Conference of the New Academic Year

The first installment of the annual Thomistic Circles series titled “Aquinas on Contemplation: Philosophy, Theology, and the Spiritual Life.” This conference will be held at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. this Saturday. pic.twitter.com/zrSk4imCGz

— Thomistic Institute (@ThomisticInst) October 6, 2020

Action Versus Contemplation: Why An Ancient Debate Still Matters

Blakey Vermeule (Stanford University), Jennifer Summit (San Francisco State University), Lisa Ruddick (University of Chicago), and Fr. Peter Funk, OSB (Monastery of the Holy Cross), on Vermeule and Summit's book Action Versus Contemplation: Why An Ancient Debate Still Matters (University of Chicago Press, 2018)

Part 2 of Trabbic's Series

CWR: Thomism and Political Liberalism, Part 2

The Natural Law

So, the natures of things determine what’s good and bad for them, what they should pursue and avoid and, again, that is true for us too. Our nature, in this sense, is the “law” that we should live by. When Thomas talks about the “law of nature” (lex naturalis) or “natural law” this is partly what he has in mind. In part our nature is this law, but our reason, insofar as it grasps what is naturally good for us, and directs us to pursue it, belongs to natural law too.

Thomas’s account of natural law, however, does not stop there. For Thomas, our nature and our reason are created by God. Hence, he teaches that the natural law ultimately comes from God. By following the natural law – which is nothing more than living in conformity with our nature – we are following God’s will. When we act against it, we are acting against God. Thomas calls the “plan” for creation as it exists in God’s “mind” the “eternal law.” This plan not only includes our nature and purpose but the nature and purpose of everything else too. To say that the natural law comes from God is the same as saying that it is derived from the eternal law. What Thomas calls the “divine law” (lex divina) is likewise derived from the eternal law. I will come back to that in a moment.

And then something on happiness...

The “knowing” of God that we are talking about in both the natural and supernatural cases is an act of contemplatio or “contemplation.” For Thomists, Jordan Aumann explains, contemplation is “a type of knowledge accompanied by delight and a certain degree of reason’s wonder before the object contemplated.”⁴ Contemplation can be pretty pedestrian, as when I appreciate the dark gold color of the scotch in my glass, or more exalted, as when I marvel at the starry sky. But the beauty of creation can and should be a ladder we ascend to the divine.

Our lives as human persons and as Christians should have divine contemplation at their center. This is what we are ultimately ordered to by nature and by grace. That doesn’t mean that we should all pack up and move to a monastery. Most basically in means a way of life faithful Catholics already live: one of regular prayer and participation in the Church’s liturgy marked in general by an appreciative and celebratory attitude toward reality, including the reality of other people.⁵ As Thomas uses the term, vita contemplativa or “contemplative life” does not necessarily refer to the life of cloistered religious. As Aumann points out, it is something that we all practice – laypeople, religious, and priests – inasmuch as we engage in contemplative acts.⁶

The "Maranatha Mantra"

promoted by Fr. John Main, OSB (!)

Maybe its defenders can argue that this is just another form of centering prayer, a higher form of Christian prayer but if it is, how can it be employed by beginners? It is certainly different from the Jesus Prayer, in which one does not empty one's mind of all content... Eastern monastics must have a field day with Westerns promoting centering prayer.

CWR: Why did Robert Cardinal Sarah decide to devote a book to silence?

The Introduction to Cardinal Sarah’s The Power of Silence, by French journalist Nicolas Diat, reveals the book could never have existed without a young French monk who was paralyzed and unable to speak—and yet formed a deep and abiding friendship born in silence, that grew in silence, and continues to exist in silence.

I believe Ignatius Press will handle the English translation?

CWR: The Quiet Courage of Cardinal Robert Sarah
In his new book, La Force du Silence, Cardinal Robert Sarah speaks with serene strength to a world consumed by self-referential chatter and to Christians who have lost their awe of God.
By Dr. Samuel Gregg

About 365 miles south-east of Paris, high in France’s remote Chartreuse Mountains, lies one of the world’s most well-known monasteries. Since its foundation in 1084 by the religious order that would become known as the Carthusians, La Grande Chartreuse has been characterized by a daunting quietness. This was famously captured a...

Ignatian Contemplation?

Or contemplation in the classical Christian sense?

Francis to National Ecclesial Congress

Fr. Hunwicke
Southern High Church
Edward Pentin: Pope Francis on Keys to Authentic Christian Humanism

Contemplation as "Silence"

Seeking Silence: An Interview with Kevin M. Johnson - The Inner Room (FB)

Our current director, Kevin M Johnson was involved in a long interview about silence and The Inner Room with Artur Sebastian Rosman.

Posted by The Inner Room on Tuesday, May 12, 2015

BC

An emphasis on nous; no such thing as Catholic silence or Catholic contemplation? What about Christian contemplation? There is no real mysticism without Christ. Too much of an "interfaith," interdisciplinary approach to contemplation that tries to engage modern Western philosophy as well? I prefer explanations by Fr. Bouyer, Archimandrite Gabriel Bunge or Fr. Jean Corbon. Contemplation is not the same as meditation, though it may make use of it.

The Liturgy Lived: The Divinization of Man | Jean Corbon, O.P. (from The Wellspring of Worship) [excerpt recently republished here]


Dialoguing About Silence

In Pursuit of Silence - FB

We're finally getting around to posting our first trailer that we put together last year. Hope you'll take the time to watch and share. #pursuitofsilence

Posted by In Pursuit of Silence - A Documentary Film on Monday, March 2, 2015

Recent Theological Opinion on Infused Contemplation (from the last century)

Some DHS videos

Fr. Pritzl. RIP.

Fr. Paul Murray, O.P. on contemplation

Part 1 and Part 2

G-L on St. Thomas and supernatural contemplation

here!

St. Thomas shows in the Summa (12) that contemplation is an act of the intellect superior to reasoning, a simple view of the truth; (13) and, when it is a question not of philosophical contemplation, but of that contemplation which the saints speak of, it springs from love, not only from the love of the knowledge habitual to philosophers, but from the love of God, from charity. (14) It proceeds consequently from living faith enlightened by the gifts of the Holy Ghost, especially by those of understanding and wisdom, which render faith penetrating and sweet.(15) Supernatural contemplation thus conceived supposes the special inspiration of the Holy Ghost, which His gifts dispose us to receive with promptness and docility,(16) as the wide-spread sails on a boat receive the impulsion of a favorable wind; then the boat advances more easily than by the labor of the rowers, a symbol of discursive meditation united to the practice of the virtues. From this point of view, contemplation, because of the special inspiration which it supposes, deserves to be called, not acquired but infused, although at the beginning it may quite frequently be prepared for by reading, affective meditation, and the prayer of petition.(17) The soul thus actively prepares itself to receive the special inspiration of the Holy Ghost, which will at times be strong enough so that discursive meditation will no longer be necessary, as when a favorable wind is strong enough to make the boat advance, the work of the rowers may cease.

This special inspiration of the Holy Ghost given to make us taste the mysteries of faith, uses the connaturality or sympathy with divine things that is rooted in charity.(18) This special inspiration gives rise in us to an act of infused love and of living, penetrating, and sweet faith, which shows us how revealed mysteries, although still obscure, wonderfully correspond to our deepest and loftiest aspirations. These acts of love and of penetrating and sweet faith are said to be infused, not only because they proceed from infused virtues, in this case from the theological virtues, but because they suppose a special inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and because we cannot move ourselves to them with the help of common actual grace. In this case God moves us, not by inclining us to deliberate, but to acts above all discursive deliberation.(19) For example, on reading the Gospel of the day at Mass, some expression that we have read many times is illuminated and captivates us, such as the words of Jesus to the Samaritan woman: "If thou didst know the gift of God!" (20) In like manner a preacher vividly experiences this illumination we are speaking of when at first he feels deeply his powerlessness to preach the Passion in a fitting manner on Good Friday, and then receives the animating breath which vivifies his thought, his will and his feelings, that he may do good to souls.

At times contemplation rises toward God by a straight movement from a sensible fact, for example, from a parable such as that of the prodigal son, to the wonderful vision of the divine mercy.(21) At other times contemplation rises by an oblique movement, for example, from the mysteries of salvation, from those of the childhood of our Savior and of His passion, to the living and profound thought of eternal life.

Lastly, there is occasionally contemplation, called circular, of the infinite goodness of God which radiates on all things, on all the mysteries of salvation. This prayer is a very simple, most loving gaze, which reminds one of the circular flight of the eagle high up in the air, hovering as it gazes at the sun and its radiation over the horizon.(22)

These principles thus formulated by St. Thomas illumine the traditional teaching on contemplative prayer which we found expressed in the works of St. Francis de Sales. This same teaching appears also in a concrete and experiential form in the writings of St. Teresa.

Compare with Fr. Giertych.

Happiness and contemplation

Acquired contemplation versus infused contemplation: see Garrigou-Lagrange on what he says on how the former can prepare one for the latter, even if it doesn't necessitate it, since infused contemplation is a special grace.

Compare adoration, contemplation, and prayer--what does St. Thomas say about each? Of what virtue are they acts of?
Infused contemplation is a gift, and hence is due wholly to God's grace, but it is still a human activity, being the act of the intellect.

What activity is the best? Theoretical contemplation? Or prayer? (ordered by the natural love of God)
natural happiness = ?
(Response to Finnis and Grisez and Boyle.)

Fr. Giertych on Thomistic contemplation

here

verify with Summa Theologiae?